[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by Henry Fool

Spoiler!

Thanks for the thoughtful response. What I worry about is that people are being too hasty and get locked in a hostile posture, which is not something any story can withstand. Stories are fragile things. If there's not enough good will between the teller and the audience, there's no story.

But you're not one of those people. I tried to make it clear that the criticism is completely fine by me. No one has to like it.

On the Quarian-Geth example, I've read it before and I think here the critics' logic simply doesn't hold. It's just one instance, two races in one moment of time. The Catalyst's perspective is far larger. Perhaps those two are in harmony now but the idea is that eventually synthetic life will extinguish organic life in the universe. The Quarians and the Geth do not invalidate that. The idea is not that synthetics and organics cannot live together in specific circumstances, it's that life in general in the universe follows a certain inevitable path unless someone acts against those laws.

It's true that you have to take this on trust, and that could be seen as a weak point in the narrative. But here we come to a very important point: the whole thing depends on the Crucible. This is something that you have to accept. The war is strategically hopeless. It is in effect already lost. They have all the fleets in one battle just to get the Crucible in place. You have to appreciate the implications of this.

The Reapers are in effect infinite, with infinite patience. Even if those that were in that particular fight were pushed back in that one battle, what would that solve? You can shoot a few down, sure, but it's just one battle. The worlds have already been lost, the Citadel is already lost. There's no infranstructure or resources to sustain a war against infinite machines with a single purpose. This is obvious to me. It's also obvious that this is what the storyteller tells us. And I think this is what haunts Shepard too, who is a military woman. The Crucible is the only hope. It's very desperate. Too desperate in fact.

So you have the choices. Perhaps you could give a fourth choice of not using it, but it would mean that the Reapers simply finish the cycle. The whole game is the "bad ending", it's not a winnable war, the catastrophy has already happened. Even if the Reapers lose the one battle it would be like America "losing" the Vietnam war.

I'll continue in another post. Hard to keep my thoughts in order in this little window.

Thanks to you as well. I can elaborate more.

Spoiler!

In terms of synthetics another pretty obvious example is EDI. So you have 2 different forms of synthetics that have shown cooperation with organics. Maybe it won't last, but who's to say it can't?

I also didn't buy the whole, "the Crucible is our only chance" argument. I was hoping it would fail because what would be the point of gathering war assets? If you take a step back and really look at it, none of your decisions mattered at that point. Save the Rachni and the Geth? Elminate the Genophage? What's the point? Their contributions are made completely meaningless by the ending.

Now to the point of defeating the Reapers in a straight up fight. Why can't it be done? They spent the two previous games showing the player exactly that they can be beaten. They aren't infinite and the bulk of their forces are in the Sol system. They defeated Sovereign and I would associate the majority of their losses at that battle to the Geth fleet. Now our fleets have improved weaponry (based on Reaper tech) enhanced sheilds and most importantly, that the fleet is a Galaxy wide union of forces. Also keep in mind that in the codex, there are people who believe we can win a conventional war against the Reapers. In fact there are also a number of codex indexes that suggest we are doing serious damage to their forces.

Back to the point, the god states that we have come further than any cycle before us. So I'd say it's safe to assume the Reapers have never had to fight a united force or had their plans repeatedly blown up in their faces. The Citadel trap failed. The human Reaper failed. Why can't their plan fail now? It would have been interesting if they let you choose to sacrifice systems. If Earth really is lost and the largest Reaper force is there then perhaps the greatest decision would have been to abandon Sol. Destroy the mass relay and wipe everything out. Maybe it won't be a happy ending but that won't make it a bad ending.

As an aside, I can see another reason why people are upset with the ending and it has everything to with the fact that it is everything that Bioware said they wouldn't do. These quotes come after the game went gold and it seems pretty obvious that people were misled.

Mike Gamble (Associate Producer) 02/23/12
There are many different endings. We wouldn't do it any other way. How could you go through all three campaigns playing as your Shepard and then be forced into a bespoke ending that everyone gets?

Well that's clearly wrong. We have 3 endings that everyone can get regardless of their decisions.

Casey Hudson (Director) 01/10/12
At this point we're taking into account so many decisions that you've made as a player and reflecting a lot of that stuff.
It's not even in any way like the traditional game endings, where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got ending A, B, or C...
The endings have a lot more sophistication and variety in them.

Again, blatently false. All you get is ending A, B or C. Previouis decisions were apparently thrown out the window when it came to the ending.

Mike Gamble (Associate Producer) 02/02/12
Every decision you've made will impact how things go. The player's also the architect of what happens.
Whether you're happy or angry at the ending, know this: it is an ending.
Bioware will not do a "Lost" and leave fans with more questions then answers after finishing the game.
You'll get answers to everything.

Did my decisions have an impact on the ending? I don't feel they did. I'll agree that they did give us an ending but it very much was a "Lost" style ending.

Mac Walters (Lead Writer) 02/28/12
Presence of the Rachni has huge consequences in Mass Effect 3. Even just in the final battle with the Reapers.

Whaaaa?

I think it would have been a different story if these comments came a year ago but this was a couple weeks to a month before the game was released.